Trade union struggle: the weapon of the weaker

In the main media in the Federal Republic, strikes appear primarily as annoying disruptions and are mainly the subject of reporting when everyday life appears to be affected. Strikes are the state of emergency that wage workers declare to companies when they want to ignore the interests of the workforce, themselves driven by competition and the shareholders’ demands for higher profits. Under capitalism, strikes are the weapon of the weaker. All successes cannot hide this. The imbalance between capital and labor remains. But without the threatened or used weapon of a strike, the imbalance would become the collective powerlessness of wage earners.

Claus-Jürgen Göpfert, long-time leading editor of the “Frankfurter Rundschau”, has published a book about Jürgen Hinzer that is well worth reading at VSA Verlag, which is also a book about 75 years of the Federal Republic and history before and after the accession of the GDR. It is both exemplary and very special.

Hinzer’s parents were refugees from East Prussia and Silesia who were stranded in northwest Germany in 1946. The father, a committed social democrat and miner, is active in a trade union. Hinzer became a bricklayer, served in the Bundeswehr, became radicalized in 1968, joined the SPD, came into contact with Marxism and trained as a union youth official, studied at the University of Economics and Politics in Hamburg, moved from the IG BAU, for which he was too left-wing, went to the Food Enjoyment Restaurants (NGG) union. In 1980, after successful efforts to build a network of shop stewards, Hinzer organized his first strike.

What Göpfert describes in an exciting and lively way, based on many conversations and extensive research, is a history of the Federal Republic from the perspective of labor disputes in sectors where warning strikes and strikes were completely unknown for a long time. It’s always about compensating for inflation. Many of these fights are primarily defensive fights. Often it’s just a matter of delaying company closures and fighting for good social plans.

“Anyone who says no to fighting today will be without a job tomorrow!”

–

What you can learn from this book is the combination of the efforts of the levels, the continuous work in the companies, the building of trust and the winning of workers and employees, with actions that at the same time mobilize the workforce and gain support in the company through comprehensive public relations Build population and support in the media and in politics. Even the “Bild” newspaper keeps winning. Hinzer was one of those who relied on direct action. It was important to him that through these actions, even if the company was ultimately closed, “the workforce fought back and retained their dignity.” Many of the reports about the fighting in which Jürgen Hinzer was an active, leading and loud participant read like crime novels. Göpfert succeeds in making the struggles of the workers vivid. They are often modern Robin Hood stories, fought out collectively, with slogans like “Whoever says no to fighting today will be out of work tomorrow!”

But what is also told is the story of the transition to financial market capitalism. Managers are increasingly becoming executors of the will of distant corporate headquarters and shareholder funds, playing location against location, workforce against workforce, employment group against employment group. The brewery industry in particular is an example of this. Particularly impressive are the battles over the factory that produced Asbach-Uralt pralines in Rüdesheim im Rheingau, a factory that ended up in the hands of United Distiller in Great Britain and then into those of a global US corporation. Employee representatives travel to London in two buses. Göpfert quotes one of the workers: “Over time you have understood: you are nothing but maneuvering mass!” This is exactly what the fights are directed against.

Göpfert’s book is a story of labor disputes at Coca-Cola and in the Bavarian dairy industry, at Maggi or Maredo, in the baking industry or in the German hotel and restaurant industry. It also reports on international solidarity with Nicaragua or Chile, in workers in France or Turkey. It tells about the founding of the WASG and the development of the Left party. And at the same time, Göpfert’s book is the life story of Jürgen Hinzer. Because without people like him it would never be possible to break the passivity in which capital tries to keep wage workers as a “maneuvering mass” to increase profits.

As Jürgen Hinzer says in the interview at the end of the book: “Only those who are inflamed themselves can inflame others. As a union secretary, you have to lead the way. For example, when a factory gate is blocked, you have to be the first to sit down and block the path of the trucks. What’s very important is that you have to take people’s fears away. (…) Direct action is important, collective action is important. During strikes people get to know each other.«

Claus-Jürgen Göpfert: “If you don’t want to listen, you’ll go on strike!” Jürgen Hinzer’s industrial dispute stories in the NGG union since 1979. VSA, 214 pages, br., €16.80.